Ghosts
by MaryW
Summary: Gwen and the SF Legacy House look into a very cold case of murder labeled as accident - and have to deal with the mysterious Legacy security chief Warlock on top of it all.
1. Chapter 1

Pt. 1

"You've got to be kidding!" Guinevere Llewelyn stared in dismay at the many old and musty boxes that had suddenly taken up residence in her office. The room the Diocese lent her while she cataloged their historical collection of Old California manuscripts wasn't overly large to begin with and now these awkward cardboard obstacles were taking up what little room she had managed to make for herself. "Where did these come from?" Guinevere, known as Gwen to her friends, pushed her red hair away from her face in frustration. Her hazel eyes scanned the scene in front of her with weary fascination. As an Archivist she knew she probably should be thrilled at the prospect of adding to the Church's collection of manuscripts but somehow she just couldn't muster much enthusiasm for this random assortment of containers. Or the cockroach she was sure she had seen crawl out from behind one of the boxes.

"A former parishioner of ours, a Dr. Madigan, willed his entire library to the church with instructions that it should be put into permanent storage along with the rest of our historical collection." Father Parris looked down at the sagging boxes with an air of confusion. "But he didn't include an inventory with the collection and Monsignor thought that that you might take up this little project in your spare time."

"And just to motivate me he had all the boxes moved into my office." Gwen finished his statement with an emphatic kick at one of the nearest receptacles. "Great! Just great! I can't even reach my computer without climbing over these things. You can smell the mold coming out of these crates from here. These things are an archivist's nightmare. They probably have been sitting in someone's basement for thirty years!"

"I'm sure you can make something of this." The priest replied, backing up slowly and making for the outside door. "We all have such faith in you." He disappeared out the door quickly, leaving the young woman to survey her wrecked office ruefully.

"Faith is great." She muttered, picking her way to her desk. "But right now, I'd give real money for a paper shredder." Picking a box at random, she heaved the cardboard receptacle onto her desk and pried open its lid. An odor of mothballs and damp paper wafted from the container. "Wonderful. Just bloody wonderful" she fumed silently. "Not only do I have a major indexing project to deal with, there's probably water damage and mold on the contents to contend with. Wonder if the guy's will left me any leeway to ditch some of these things? They can't all be relevant to the church." Gwen sighed in frustration as she opened another of the twenty boxes, hoping vainly for something resembling an index to present itself. The first one had been filled with yearbooks from the various universities the doctor had either attended or taught at. The second box had contained stacks of old receipts going back to the 1950's. So far the collection was proving itself to be of more interest from a genealogical standpoint as opposed to a historical one. "This guy must have been an IRS agent's worst nightmare." She thought to herself, carefully stacking the molding slips of paper back in the box. "He must have keep every receipt and bill for fifty years." She pulled open the third box, shaking it gently to see if anything living leaped out of it. It would not have surprised her, given the condition of the cartons, to have found a mouse or a large spider in residence. Fortunately nothing leapt out at her other than dust mites. She gingerly lifted the first of a series of notebooks from the box, frowning at the name at the top of the journal – Mercedes Lord. "Thought this guy's name was Madigan," she murmured, lifting the journal carefully from its resting place. Her white-gloved hands moved slowly down a page of what appeared to be articles from a newspaper – the Lordsville Gazette – pasted into a diary. As she slowly read the words in front of her, a feeling of detachment came over her, a sure sign that her Gift of the Sight was about to strike. Slowly the stained pages in front of her faded to be replaced by other images, confusing and terrifying images she couldn't quite understand. A man and a woman in clothing from another century stood in a parlor arguing violently. Their words were indistinct, no more than a murmur. Suddenly the woman threw herself on the man, pummeling his chest in a frenzy of grief and anger. The man pushed her away angrily and walked away, leaving her sobbing on the floor. She stared after him, her expression a mixture of anger and something else – an inexplicable longing, a hunger that was unappeased. She crawled to her feet and staggered to the fireplace. The woman stared intently at the flames, then reached her hand towards the heat.

Gwen gasped, pulling her hand away from the journal. The vision had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She scanned the words of the diary, hoping to make sense of the vision she had seen.

Jan. 4, 1882

Diary,

He's gone again – gone to her. My own sister sleeps with my beloved under our roof as though she were Mistress of the house and I only a serving girl. They think I do not know but I have seen them on the cliff's edge walking hand in hand like lovers. He once walked with me in such a fashion, but now I am forgotten. But not for long. Soon everyone, even as far as San Francisco, will know my anger and grief. My faithless lover and whore of a sister will rue the day they betrayed me.

Gwen stared at the words with a frown. "Hmm…sounds like someone's marriage was headed for the trash. But what does this have to do with that vision?" Though there wasn't any supernatural event (other than her vision) associated with the diary her curiosity was piqued. "It won't hurt to learn a little more about these people," she reasoned, carefully laying the journal on her desk. "This might turn into a historical find after all – perhaps even adding to information about those early families in California." The excuse sounded lame even to her. Yet when she thought of the woman's face with its mixture of fury and hunger, Gwen knew she couldn't leave well enough alone. She turned and logged into her computer, making her way quickly through cyberspace to the one database she knew might have the answers she sought -in the database that belonged to the Legacy.


	2. Chapter 2

Pt. 2

Gwen waited as the database's emblem, a capital letter L and a sword, appeared on her screen. She briefly considered reminding the Legacy's programmers that she hadn't changed her password in the last thirty days then dismissed the mundane fact from her mind. Gwen had been taught to use random characters for a password so not changing it in a set period of time had never proven to be a great breach to security. Not unless someone could figure out the unconscious path her fingers took the last time she devised her password. With swift fingers, she typed in the name of the document's donor and the name on the journal and waited. As the database processed her research request, she flipped through the notebook, which had triggered her Sight. There were sketches of flowers and other doodles and a few newspaper clippings. The journal entry was at the very beginning of the book, leading Gwen to believe there might be other such manuscripts that hopefully were in the same box – other documents to detail more about the sadness of the woman who had penned that entry. The sound of a car crashing (a sound she had insisted on downloading as a sign of a completed procedures) alerted her to the fact that the system was through with her search.

The search was comprehensive, pulling up everything the massive computer-system had found on Dr. Madigan and his connection to the Lord family. Madigan's ancestor had been a small town doctor in Lordsville, just a few hours down the coast from San Francisco. Sometime in 1882 that Dr. Madigan had received a bequest from a wealthy patient and had moved his family to the Bay Area, where his last descendent had resided until his death. The patient who had bequeathed the inheritance to Dr. Madigan had been Mercedes Lord. "Interesting." She thought to herself. "I think I'll have these journals checked out a little more carefully." She flipped through her Rolodex then picked up her phone and quickly dialed a number.

On Angel Island, the home of the San Francisco Legacy House, Nick Boyle was just coming in from his morning jog when the phone began to ring. He snagged the receiver as he passed it, signaling to the House's butler that he would not be needed. "Luna Foundation." He said, tossing his sweaty towel on a nearby chair.

"Nick?" a feminine voice asked. Nick smiled at the sound of that particular voice.

"Yeah, hi there Gwen. What's up in the world of archives?" he replied. It had been too long since he had spoken with Gwen Llewelyn, a member of the London Mother house who was on loan to the local diocese. The young redhead had been part of an investigation into the death of her cousin along with members of the San Francisco House, an investigation that had led to some sad revelations about members of Gwen's family. When the case had ended, Gwen had returned to her Archivist position, preferring to remain a free agent in the world of the Legacy, a decision that had disappointed Nick. He had come to like woman, especially as she seemed to have a more "normal" attitude about her gifts and their uses in the Legacy than many he had met.

"Something really strange has come up, Nick. I've got some journals here I need you to run an analysis on. Can I bring them over the Island in about an hour?"

"Now you've got me curious." Nick looked at his watch then ran his fingers through his damp hair. "Sure, but it'll just be you and me doing the analysis. Everyone else in my House is gone on assignment and Derek's locked himself in his office trying to do end of month reports for the Mother House."

"Not a problem. I've run these sorts of tests before when I was in the London House. Besides," she teased, "Didn't you always say you wanted to get me alone for a while?"

"Yeah, but not with a bunch of musty old documents between us." He replied lightheartedly. "See you in an hour."

"See you in an hour."

Gwen hung up and tossed the journal back into the box with the others than grabbed her coat and bag. She balanced the box on one hip as she made her way out of the office and out to the parking lot. The door closed behind her with a decisive snap, just as the door at the other end of the corridor began to slowly open.


	3. Chapter 3

Pt. 3

Gwen drove her Jeep quickly to Angel Island, the box of journals riding precariously beside her. She purposely kept from thinking about the flashes of images she had received upon touching the documents, hoping to keep an open mind about the contents of the books. "Maybe it was just residual energy from the writer's unhappy soul." She mused silently, driving carefully onto the ferry that would take her to the island. "It certainly looked sad enough." She watched the seabirds swoop down to catch their dinner as the ferry slowly approached its destination. The young Archivist wondered whether the woman, Mercedes, had been able to escape her situation. "They say times have changed but some things seemed to stay the same. Bad relationships seem to be timeless."

Once on the island it took her only moments to reach the Luna Foundation mansion perched majestically behind it's secure gates. The guards at the gate called up to the house for permission to allow her entrance, a change she was glad to see enacted. It had long been something of a joke with the Mother House that the San Francisco House might have been a formidable fortress against the forces of Darkness but it was a pushover for a thief with a good lock pick.

"About time you got here." Nick called from the doorway as Gwen pulled up to the door. "What's in the box?"

"That's what you and I get to find out." She replied, handing the moldering cardboard container to her fellow Legacy member. "Where is everyone?"

"Alex and Rachel are off investigating a supposed haunting of an old bookstore near San Mateo. Derek is in his office working on reports and Kat is visiting with relatives of her dad's. So it's just you, me and your box for the next few days."

"How romantic!" she replied dryly, holding the door open for her friend.

"So tell me about the box." Nick led the way through the drawing room, heading for the hologram which guarded the entrance to the House's hidden laboratories. He stopped suddenly, causing Gwen to almost run over him. "Damn, listen I need to get to the computer so that I can let you into the lab. I don't think you're Okayed to get past our security system."

"There shouldn't be a problem." Gwen replied. "My security clearance from my House is still in effect. It's not like I'm not a member of the Legacy. I'm just on loan to the church for a while."

Nick dropped the box at her feet and jogged through a seemingly solid wall, which shivered as he entered. A few moments later he reappeared and retrieved the box. "Okay, we're set. Come on through." The two entered the main laboratories of the Legacy House and started to work, pulling the moth-eaten journals from the boxes with gloved hands. Gwen briefly reviewed their contents, stacking those that were clearly Dr. Madigan's personal notes to one side and those that resembled the first journal on another table. Once the sorting was completed the duo began scanning their pages into the computer. Nick watched as the notes, sketches and articles were assimilated into the database. "So what am I seeing? This all looks like someone's diaries to me."

"That's what it seems." Gwen replied, reading through another journal carefully. "From what I'm seeing, this woman – who I think is Mercedes Lord – was married to a sea Captain by the name of Josiah Duncan in the late 1880's. They lived in a town called Lordsville that was founded by her grandfather just up the coast from San Francisco. Her younger sister Vivian also lived with her and this appears to have been the catalyst from some problems between Mercedes and her husband."

"How is this of interest to the Legacy?" Nick commented sarcastically, tossing the journal on the table. "You said on the phone you had something strange for us to look into. This sounds like a plot from one of those soap operas my last girl friend watched."

"You had a girlfriend?" she teased, picking up another of the journals. Gwen closed the book she was reading slowly and closed her eyes, willing her Sight to activate. It was a futile gesture since the Sight was a capricious gift at best, appearing when she least expected it. She gave up the attempt after a few moments, and then rose to join her friend at the computer. "The thing is, I'd agree with you if I hadn't had a flash of something back at the church when I first picked these books up. It was … disturbing to say the least. I was just hoping to find out more about the family, something to explain the uneasiness I felt after the vision."

"Maybe it was something inspired by the demonic?" Nick asked cautiously. Though he and Gwen were friends, there were things about the red-head's power of Sight that he wasn't sure he would ever learn. After they had met on a case involving her family ghosts, Nick had contacted a friend in the Mother House about the young woman. The friend had called back almost immediately, informing Nick that Gwen Llewelyn was a member in good standing and a particular friend of the House's Security chief, a mysterious man known only as "Warlock". Both he and the House's Precept had vouched for the girl's integrity and gifts but had refused to elaborate. Nick had never pressed the issue, choosing to enjoy her friendship instead of concerning himself about her extra-sensory talents.

"I'm not sure what it was I saw." Gwen replied with a frown. "It wasn't like anything…Nick, Look! A message is coming in from the Mother House!"

Nick quickly switched to the House's secure email account and downloaded the message. It read - "Have received word from our techs that you have been researching a family by the name of Lord and a Dr. Madigan. I may have some information for you pertaining to both those names. Will be in San Francisco tomorrow. Don't bother to meet me – I'll find you." The note was signed by – Warlock.

"Okay, this is creepy." Gwen said, shivering. "How did he know where I was? What "information" could he have in England about two families in California in the 1880's? Better yet – why would he care enough about it to come all the way out here? He never leaves our House!"

"So who is this guy anyway?" Nick asked with a scowl. "Everyone I ask clams up the minute I mention him. What is he – some Black Ops type?"

"He was" Gwen admitted ruefully. "MI5 to be precise. He was on some covert operation about twenty years ago when he ran into a demonic presence in a weapons plant he was suppose to infiltrate. Seems the "Other Side" had built the plant over some ancient ceremonial site and its guardian horrors were awakened by random violence perpetrated by the goons guarding the place. Warlock was the only one to come out alive. Rumor has it that the Precept of the Mother House had connections in Whitehall and managed to get an invitation to Warlock to come and talk to him about what he had seen. It was a match, as they say, made in Heaven. He came on board as Security Chief and has been with the Legacy ever since."

"You know him pretty well."

"We were not always on good terms. When I first came to the Legacy he was of the opinion I was too young and too immature to be a good investigator. He still doesn't even pretend to understand My Sight or my resident family ghosts. But …"Gwen stopped and looked up at her friend with a sad smile. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." Nick replied, hesitantly.

"You checked me out after that madness with my Cousin's ghost, right?"

"Well… yeah I did" Nick admitted. "The Mother House said you were one of their best investigators."

"Did they tell you why I'm on Sabbatical?"

"No. I guess they figured it wasn't any of my business."

"It wasn't," she agreed with a smile. "But I'll tell you anyway. I was part of a team that was sent into a small community in Wales to investigate the disappearances of several hikers, one of who had Legacy ties. When we got there we discovered the place was over-run with vampires. Problem was we didn't find it out until the locals had managed to lock us in the old desecrated church." She sighed and rose to stretch her tired legs. "They told us the people who had disappeared, a couple of young boys, had been allowed to sleep in the old church since there wasn't an Inn. We started into the place and were set upon by the rest of the men of the village who managed to trap us in the stairwell leading up to the organ loft. That's when we saw them… the vampires. They were up in the choir loft, stretched out in the pews like logs. We tried to get back out but there were only three of us – myself, our team leader Miles Leander and one other researcher Thomas O'Keefe. O'Keefe wasn't much of a fighter – the villagers took him down almost immediately. Leander fought back and we managed to barricade ourselves in the bell tower for a while. Then one of the vampires managed to climb up the outside wall and snatch Leander. I spent the whole night in that tower, fighting for my life, using every trick I could remember from lectures Warlock had made us sit through, with every family ghost who's name I could remember floating through to add their two cents to the situation. I even tried psychically sending an S.O.S. message back to the House, hoping one of my fellow psychics would hear it. In the morning I climbed out of the tower, found our cars and made a break for it. Funny thing, it was Warlock, the one member of the House who we thought was psychically deaf, that got the message. He came in with our backup team and hosed the church with flame-throwers, even salted the ground in and around the churchyard. I think he would have lined the villagers up against a wall and shot them too if our Precept hadn't stopped him." Gwen shivered, remembering the moment when Warlock had walked into her hospital room and told her what he had done. "He came and gave me a full report after it was done. That's when I knew I need some space from the House, from the fight against the Darkness."

"Can't say I blame you" Nick replied quietly. "Anyone would be overwhelmed by that kind of horror."

"No Nick, it wasn't what I experience on the mission that convinced me. It was when Warlock told me what he had done and what he would have liked to do and I found myself agreeing with him on all of it - even on what he almost did to the villagers. I never thought of myself as a particularly vengeful type but that day I would have cheerfully backed him up on an extermination squad if he had asked me. That's when I knew I needed out for a while, to get my perspective back.

Nick sat back in silence for a moment. "I understand where your head was at when that happened. When my unit died I wanted to hit back at the person responsible for their deaths more than anything." He leaned back in his chair and looked up at his friend with understanding "It wouldn't have brought them back."

"I know, but at the time I thought it would feel good to make them suffer as much as my teammates had. But our Precept was right. It would have changed nothing."

"So what do we do about your buddy the ex-spy coming for a visit?" Nick asked lightly, changing the subject before they both grew anymore introspective. "Derek's going to have to be told he's coming. Too bad he didn't give us more notice."

"I know," Gwen replied with a sigh. "But it looks like Warlock isn't giving us a choice. He's coming whether we want him to or not. So, which one of us gets to tell your Precept he's having guests?"


	4. Chapter 4

Pt. 4

Derek rummaged through the files again, trying to find the estimates on money spent on the Winston Raine Hall of Antiquities. Somewhere in that estimate was the amount the Legacy had spent on acquiring a set of cursed wine goblets supposedly linked to the Borgia family. Derek had, at the time, expressed certain reservations about their authenticity – until a dockworker had used one for a beer mug and had died under mysterious circumstances hours later. The Mother House had insisted he give them all the details of that event down to the last penny spent to create a factual cover story to explain the man's death. Derek sighed and pushed the files away in frustration. He hated doing the monthly reports that the Mother House seemed so fond of. Alex usually dealt with them; compiling them into a neat, comprehensive document he could put his signature on. But this month she was busy on assignment and had left the job in his lap. "She looked very pleased to kick this back to me" Derek groused to himself. "I'd swear she did this on purpose." He rose and stretched, allowing his tired muscles to unwind. He had heard a car pull up a few hours before but had been so engrossed in the paperwork that he hadn't checked on who had arrived. Now, he decided, would be a good time to check up things before he drove himself to distraction on a report no one would read.

"Dominick" he asked as he stepped out into the hall "Do you know who arrived a while ago?"

"Yes Sir, I believe it was Miss Guinevere. She and Nick are in the lab." Dominic continued towards the kitchen. "I was about to see about dinner, Sir. I suppose Miss Guinevere will be staying?"

"I haven't a clue" Derek replied, heading in the direction of the hologram.

Inside the lab, Gwen and Nick continued to study the diaries, each trying to avoid the moment when one of them would have to inform Derek of the impending arrival of the Mother House's notorious Security Chief. "Nick, look at this clipping. It fell out of that first journal – the one I was holding when I had the vision." Gwen gingerly held out a yellowed scrap of newspaper with a frown. "I was afraid something like this might have happened."

Nick laid the paper gingerly on the scanner and copied it, projecting its image on the computer screen in front of them.

Lords Ville Daily Gazette – January 4th, 1882

Local couple killed in tragic fire

The home of Captain Josiah Duncan was the scene of a tragic fire today. Capt. Duncan and his wife Mercedes – both long time residents of our fair community – died when their parlor was engulfed in flames. Only quick action by the Captain's servants saved Mrs. Duncan's sister Vivian Lord and the majority of the house. It is believed that the fire started when a candelabra was accidentally knocked over into a set of lace curtains, which ignited immediately. Mrs. Duncan, a long-time invalid, was unable to escape the smoke and flames and her husband – who had recently been injured in a hunting accident – was overcome while trying to save her. Mrs. Lord's family has been a member of this community since its founding and she and her husband will be missed.

"Give me a break!" Nick commented sarcastically. "Okay, I can buy the guy might not have been able to help her himself if he'd been hurt previously but he couldn't just yank the curtains down and stomp on them? Or get out of the room and bring help? Something's fishy about this story."

"Yes, it does read like a press release doesn't it? I'd almost swear…" Gwen's voice trailed off as her Sight hit her again. It began in the same place with the man and woman from her previous vision seated in chairs at opposite ends of the room. But there was something wrong with the scene. The man and woman appeared to be sleeping in their chairs. The male figure was stretched out in his chair with his feet propped up on a small table. The woman reclined on a settee with a veil over her face. A shadow passed them in the darkness, holding a lighted candlestick. The figure carefully lit the lace curtains gently moving in the evening breeze then dropped the candlestick beside the flaming mass. Smoke began to fill the room and the wallpaper began to curl as the flames spread from the windows to any burnable item they could reach. The man coughed and gagged but stayed in his chair, seemingly unable to break the hold that sleep had on him. The woman didn't move at all. The heat began to be unbearable…

"Gwen!" Nick reached over and shook his friend hard, as she began to choke in her seat. "Come out of it!"

"Nick! What's going on?" Derek raced into the lab, concerned by Nick's shouts.

"It's Gwen. We were talking and suddenly she just trailed off with that distant look in her eyes. Then she started to cough and choke."

"I'm alright," Gwen sputtered, trying to take a breath. "I just got too caught up in the vision."

"What did you see?" Derek asked, concerned.

Gwen pointed distractedly to the image on the computer screen. "I saw the fire. You're right to think that article was a put-up job Nick. It was no accident that killed Capt. Duncan and his wife. They were murdered."


End file.
